Social grant recipients will be making a beeline for the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) queues again on Monday. That’s where they have to switch to the new card system, now being operated by the Post Office.
Last week there were delays in obtaining the new cards and withdrawing grant monies. This because the Post Office IT system could not handle the high volumes as well as the parastatal being hit by strike action from workers.
Sassa appointed the Post Office as the new distributor of social grants.
The Post Office IT system could also not handle the high volumes of grant holders trying to access their funds as well as switch their cards. The system timed out and also capped the withdrawal limit
The Post Office says until a month ago they only signed up to do the electronic banking solution for the social grant payments.
Then they informed they had to do cash payments as well as replace all the cards.
But this is cold comfort to the more than 700 000 of the country’s most vulnerable that queues for their service.
Both Sassa and the Post Office are certain that this was just teething problems and all beneficiaries should have their cash by now.
WATCH BELOW:
